Your Right to Know

U.S. intelligence agencies hacked into the email servers of Chinese tech giant Huawei five years
ago, around the time concerns were growing in Washington that the telecommunications equipment
manufacturer was a threat to U.S. security, two newspapers reported yesterday.

The National Security Agency began targeting Huawei in early 2009 and gained access to the
company’s client lists and email archive, the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported, citing secret
U.S. intelligence documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The New York Times also
published a report yesterday about the documents.

The operation, which Der Spiegel claims was coordinated with the CIA, FBI and White House
officials, also netted source codes for Huawei products. One aim was to exploit the fact that
Huawei equipment is used to route voice and data traffic worldwide, according to the report. But
the NSA was also concerned that the Chinese government itself might use Huawei’s presence in
foreign networks for espionage, it said.